Friend, Lover, and Guardian
by Lena4ever
Summary: Her family brutally murdered by an unknown stalker and the police can't find him. Oceanne is placed in the care of Marc and put in a kind of witness protection. when her stalker slips into her life what will she choose? revenge? or love?


She lay in the hospital bed with tears streaming down her face and neck as the doctor told her simply and without feeling that her parents and three brothers were not going to recover from their injuries. Her parents had been extremely kind and yet the family had gotten threatening letters for more than a month. They had promised the family's death and the previous night, that promise had become a reality. The maniac had left only one alive, and only barely was she. Their fourteen year old daughter, Oceanne, who was to celebrate her fifteenth birthday in only two months, was the only survivor. Yes, she was alive, but not for lack of trying. Oceanne had been stabbed eleven times and shot once in the shoulder. And now, as she lay sobbing and mourning for her parents and brothers, she was told she would have a bodyguard because the police had not caught the person who had butchered her family. She would be relocated, taught martial arts and attend a new school. Her bodyguard's name was Marc and he would follow her everywhere. He was seventeen and the best in his graduating class.

Two Months Later. . . .

The girl turned and her black hair gave off a blue sheen as it caught the sunshine pouring into the window of her room. Her lips were full, her nose delicate and cheeks rosy. However, her gray-blue eyes dominated her face. They changed from stormy ocean blue to a light gray-turquoise depending on the lighting and her mood. After looking at her features, it became obvious why she had been named Oceanne. "Oceanne! Time for breakfast!" called Marc, her protector, teacher and friend, up the stairs. "Okay! Be down in a sec!" she called. She quickly tied back her long, straight hair and picked out a pair of dark wash jeans and a black bleach and paint/clay stained t-shirt. Many people would call her a small young woman, some would say too small. She fit in a size zero pant, but she was finally wearing a bra and her height was about 5'9" though she never really kept track of that. She ran down the stairs in her socks and slid into the kitchen with the most grace she could manage. She gave Marc a bright smile and sat down at the table to scarf down the pancakes and fruit he put in front of her. "It still feels weird living here," she said as she looked around the small two bedrooms and two bath two story house. "Yeah, I guess it is," he stated simply. Marc was amazed at how strong Ocean (his nickname for her) was. Her entire family had been slaughtered just two months ago and yet she could smile. "You ready for school today?" "No, but I have to go anyway. Are we gonna train when we get home?" "Yeah. You're getting good; we might actually spar for real today." Ocean grinned at that. She had an aptitude for tae kwon do and more, she loved it. It was the reason she could smile. She studied the young man in front of her. He was 6'2", had deep dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He was well muscled and was the type of guy who had girls clinging to him whether he wanted them or not. This was not just because of his looks; he had a magnetic personality and was protective of his friends. This high school would be fun. "We're in all the same classes' right?" "Hmm? Oh, yeah, we are." "Just make sure you keep up. I don't want to have to tutor you." She said it so seriously that within ten seconds both teenagers burst out laughing. "Let's go, Ocean. We're gonna be late," Marc said, the laugh still evident in his tone. "So, which car are we taking? The Porsche or the Audi?" "The Audi, smart-ass." Ocean found the keys and chucked them at Marc's head. He caught them right before they hit his head, right between the eyes. Then he launched into a lecture about how she can't do stuff like that at school. Ocean stopped listening about ten seconds into the speech. "Can we just go to school Marc?" She rolled her eyes at him to accentuate her point. The two young adults walked laughing out the garage door and slid into the small silver Audi. "Oh yeah!" Marc exclaimed and snapped his fingers. "Look in the glove compartment." Ocean obliged and gasped when she saw what was in the compartment. A sapphire and diamond choker necklace sat on top of Marc's driving registration and other papers. "Omigod!" It came out as one word on a whoosh of air. "Marc, it's beautiful. Help me put it on." She gave the necklace to him, turned away and lifted her long ponytail up. He took the necklace, brought it around her neck and fastened the clasp. Ocean's hand fluttered up and touched the necklace to make sure it was real. She turned back to face him and the amazed gratitude in her eyes was all he could ever ask for. "Okay Ocean, let's get our asses to school before we're late." With that, he opened the garage door, started the Audi and pulled out to the street. The drive to the small public school they were to go to was almost exactly half an hour. The two were to be in the same classes despite their age discrepancy. Their cover story was that they had gotten a scholarship to the elite semi-public school, which took only children with rich parents or those who had gotten a scholarship, and that their parents could not move with them. They were supposedly cousins and living in the same house that had been rented by their parents and other relatives. Ocean found a radio station that she liked and they drove to school in companionable silence. They pulled into the public parking lot and walked to the main office that had its own part of the building. Ocean gazed at the school as she and Marc walked toward the office. She discovered that she detested the building itself but loved the surrounding woods and gardens that bloomed in all of their late autumn glory. The trees had beautifully colored leaves that contrasted sharply with the dull brown of the bricks on the building that would be her school. Marc snapped her out of her trance by muttering that they were almost at the office. He had noticed her staring at the flora and knew she would be daydreaming of roaming free in the forest of colors and blossoms. As she began to look around, she realized that the school had become populated in only a few minutes and started to categorize everyone she saw. There were preps, jocks, Barbies, and the kids who no one paid attention to, the lowest class who all stuck together unless targeted by a bully. She also noticed that the girls had already shown an interest in her bodyguard. She moved a little closer to Marc to try to get the girls to back off, he had always hated that he was stared at so much. They reached the main office; there they were given their schedules, maps and a teacher to give them a very quick tour of the school. They had been unaware that today was to start two hours later than normal because of a major conference of many of the rich kids' parents. So they got their tour and then went to their homeroom to talk. "This could be a potentially problematic school, y'know." Ocean said to Marc in a voice saying that she didn't like what she was seeing. "We have to stay here at least two months. If you still don't like it, we can choose a different location." The teacher walked in at that moment and stared at her two new students who were very early and very awake. Most of her students were dozing off at this time of the morning. "Hello, you two must be Oceanne and Marckas. My name is Mrs. Kleirent and I'm your homeroom teacher. How do you like the school grounds so far?" Ocean summed her up quickly, deciding that she was commonly good natured and patient. However, there was an underlying threat in her movements, telling everyone around that there would be a punishment for doing something you weren't supposed to do. "Hello Mrs. Kleirent. Please call me Ocean and this is my cousin Marc. The grounds of the school are wonderful, but I find the school itself a bit distasteful." "Ocean, please don't be so rude. I am sorry for my cousin's rudeness Mrs. Kleirent; she is accustomed to speaking whatever comes into her head." Marc said apologetically. "It is quite alright. I myself have the same opinion of the school building. I am also the French teacher in this school and may I ask if you two are in my class?" "Oui, Madame. C'est vrai." Ocean said in French. "I am happy that you speak French so nicely Ocean. Does your cousin have the same ability as you?" "Non, Madame. He is, shall we say, a bit French impaired." The two of them speaking continuous French confused Marc to no end and he asked them to switch to English. "Merci, Madame. My French is not very good and I have promised my cousin she will not have to tutor me. So for now, could we speak in English?" "Oui, Marc, for your benefit and sanity." Ocean then began to giggle and Marc shot her a dirty look. She stopped laughing as other students began to file into the classroom. "A bientot, Madame Kleirent." Marc and Ocean took their seats as the bell rang and announcements began over the intercom. Their teacher had instantly liked Ocean and her cousin. She looked down at the sheet she held and realized that they were in all of the same classes, with either Ocean moving up two levels or Marc moving down. The first being far more common than the second. She was surprised but said nothing and decided to watch and wait to see what would come of the interesting arrangement. After the announcements the bell rang, signaling that the students had four minutes to get to their first period class. Marc and Ocean's first class was a sculpting class that Ocean had chosen because of her love of art and the hope to see Marc mess something up. "Hello, Mr. . ." "Mr. Heartnat, Miss Oceanne and Mr. Marckas, I presume." "Yes, Mr. Heartnat. May I ask what the class is doing today?" Ocean asked taking the initiative, being more comfortable in this art room than she had been anywhere else for a while. "We are sculpting different varieties of flora and fauna. Now, let's see what you can do with clay." Ocean smiled at that and immediately sat down and began to sculpt the first thing to come to mind: a small rabbit. The animal began to take form with Mr. Heartnat giving small pointers here and there. Inside of thirty minutes, halfway through class, she was using a small sculpting tool to add details to the eyes and face overall. She worked slowly and deliberately, he noted, but with an intensity rarely seen in his classroom. "You have five minutes left in class, students. Oceanne, would you mind if this sculpture stayed in the classroom for a while?" "Yes, of course, bien sur. I would like the opportunity to give it color though if you do not mind." He nodded his consent and she drifted out of the classroom with Marc. He noted that she enjoyed sculpting and, he could say this with certainty, she was talented. She dressed like an artist also, wearing paint stained semi-tight jeans and a stylish but rather old black shirt with bleach stains all over it. This girl, mused the teacher, will not be hard to get along with. Ocean walked with Marc to their next class, Trigonometry, very happy. Just before reaching class however, someone slapped her ass and she whirled to see a cocky face on a relatively handsome boy. He comes from money, she realized, and luckily for her wouldn't back down from a fight, especially one against a girl. "Would you like to do that again?" Ocean asked her voice dangerously quiet. His eyes sparkled and his hand reached out to do just that. She caught his hand in the grip Marc had taught her in her very first lesson. Then she subtly found a pressure point and pushed down hard enough for him to yelp. The sound of pain had Marc turning around slowly and assessing the situation at hand. "Ocean, calm down and let the nice boy's hand go. Now, please." She did as he told her, and then told the boy, "If you try something like that again I won't be so nice to you. Now, get out of my sight." Marc gave her a look that spoke volumes and she sighed. "Marc, I know I'm not supposed to use violence but I don't take it lightly when someone slaps my ass in the middle of a hallway." Marc's eyes glittered at the last statement but showed no other sign of anger. She knew that that had hit a button though. "Alright, I will restrain my temper if you do the same." "Let's get to class before we're late." So, you are more upset than you appear to be. Ocean bounced down the rest of the hallway to the math room and smiled brightly at the Trig teacher before finding her seat which was next to Marc's. The rest of the day passed without incident through math, Chemistry, French 2, European Studies, lunch, 11th grade English and a writing class. As they got to the car, however, the boy who she had let her aggressions out on showed up, with seven of his friends. "So this is the girl who you said numbed your arm out," said the oldest of them, presumably the boy's older brother. "Not bad to look at, not bad at all." "Get away from our car please," Marc said as politely as he could manage. "And if I say I won't?" Marc moved toward the car and went to open the door. The oldest boy attempted to shove him off balance to show that he could. Unfortunately for him, Marc didn't even sway. "What the hell?" said the boy not so eloquently. "Please move before I have to remove you," Marc said in a soft voice. "Why, she your girlfriend or something?" the boy said with false bravado. "To you, she is my cousin whom I protect from trash like you." As he said this, Marc lifted the boy by the scruff of the neck and moved him bodily out of his way. "By the way, what is your name?" "I'm Nick. Why do you care?" "Just so I know who you are in the future," Marc said with more than a hint of a threat in his voice and eyes. "Ocean, you coming?" "Yeah, right behind you and getting into the car." She slid into the car and the young men surrounding it wondered what made her so important that her cousin protected her as he did. On the way back to the house Ocean was silent until she asked Marc why he had reacted that way. "It is my duty to respond that way. You are not supposed to be hurt in any way while I am guarding you." Ocean thought about that for eleven minutes before she decided to lift the gloomy atmosphere in the car. "So, are we gonna spar today?" "How much homework do we have?" "Not too much. There's math with one page, science with two and social studies with one and a half. About forty-five minutes of homework overall." "Hmm. We'll see how it goes and if it's before five o'clock when we finish then we'll spar. For real this time, no padding and no holding back." Both of them grinned evilly, thinking of how to get back at each other for the many bruises accumulated over the past two months. As Ocean was going over the exact style and sequence of kicks she was going to use, Marc slammed on the brakes sending both of them forward before the seatbelts stopped them abruptly. With her hands on the dashboard, Ocean looked up and saw the face that had been haunting her dreams since her family had been killed. The man smiled and she screamed in a high pitched voice before blacking out. Marc shook her unceremoniously awake. He looked concernedly at her and then asked her a question. She just shook her head because she could not hear him over the blood pounding in her ears. After a few minutes the blood stopped pounding the inside of her head and Marc said he was calling his boss. "Shut up for a minute," she said in a harsh voice. She racked her memory desperately searching for the image of _his_ face. She could no longer find it. 'Shit! My mind blocked it out. When we get home, I'm gonna go to my room and try to sculpt him,' Ocean thought bitterly as she hit the car door next to her. "Ocean, are you alright?" "No, I'm not thank you very much," she said with venom. Marc leaned back with a confused expression at her tone. She had never spoken to him with such venom, not even the day after the murders. He drove home without any more words to her and when they reached the house Ocean jumped out of the car and slammed the door on her way into the house. Her bodyguard could hear her race up the steps and slam her bedroom door. He sighed and went into the house trying to think of what he had done that could have set her off like that. Ocean sat down at her art table and cut off a chunk of clay the size of her head. She shaped the head and began to shape the nose when the memories came back. _The back door had been jimmied and her mother shoved her in a closet as she found other hiding places in the tranquil blue master suite. Her mother had told her to be absolutely quiet and she kept her last promise to her mother even as she saw the man come up behind her with a knife that had been in her father's cooking set. Ocean covered her mouth to muffle the scream that came out as the knife was plunged into her mother's back. One, two, three. . . no stop counting, I don't want to know. She turned her head away as her mother was killed. She heard a noise at the door and looked up in time to see her father, loving and devoted to his family, try to save his wife of twenty years. His scream as he died and followed his wife to whatever afterlife there was echoed in her ears. She curled into a protective ball at the bottom of the closet until she heard the police sirens outside the house and men yelling to each other to find any survivors. With her family's screams still echoing over and over in her ears she opened the closet doors. Her mother was on the ground facing Ocean. Her eyes were open and to Ocean seemed to be saying 'why didn't you tell me. Why didn't you save me.' Ocean rushed out of the room sobbing while being attacked from behind and ran into the chest of a police officer and screamed and screamed. _Ocean opened her eyes that were misty with tears and kept working on remembering the face of the monster she so wanted to forget. She stopped at the nose and went down to the basement without a word to Marc who had helped her through all of this and the person who she wished she didn't need. Ocean stopped in front of the radio and turned it on as loud as it would go. She wrapped her fingers and feet and proceeded to beat her guilt and frustrations out. Upstairs in the kitchen, Marc heard the music and not so subtle hits to the punching bag. He knew something was wrong but could not figure out a way to comfort her.


End file.
